Comment by sReinwald | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sReinwald | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

In your case, "speed reading" and "skimming" are obviously just two flavors of "I didn't actually read this properly but still feel qualified to diagnose everyone involved."

You'd love to see more research? You must've been reading so fast, you breezed right past the Stanford Study, the MIT Media Lab Research and the analysis by McCoy showing GPT-4o affirmed psychotic delusions 68% of the time.

Or do you mean it in the sense of "we have to study this for at least 20 years and let thousands suffer and die before we can determine whether chatbots affirming people's delusions or coaching them on how to kill themselves is a bad thing"?

Your concerns about the slippery slope from "maybe chatbots shouldn't coach people through suicide" to "forced psychiatric evaluations" or "institutionalization" is genuinely unhinged. And, tellingly, it betrays your view of mental healthcare as fundamentally punitive and authoritarian rather than supportive or therapeutic. Big advocate for mental health, you are.

You realize we already regulate countless things to protect vulnerable people from mental harm, right?

We put warning labels on cigarettes. We have age ratings on media. We don't let casinos exploit problem gamblers. We don't let bartenders serve alcohol to visibly intoxicated people. We don't let therapists tell suicidal patients to jump off buildings. None of these regulations are authoritarian overreach - they're basic safety measures that exist because in a healthy society, vulnerable people deserve protection, not exploitation.

But apparently when it's time to consider holding tech to similar standards, we're supposed to just shrug and say, "well, they were probably crazy anyway."

Your position essentially boils down to: "Vulnerable people exist, therefore companies should be free to exploit them." That's not a mental health advocacy position - it's tech industry bootlicking dressed up as concern trolling.

That's why you should feel ashamed.

You’re clearly passionate about this, and I don’t fault you for that. But I’d suggest dialing back the aggression, rhetoric like “bootlicking” and “you should feel ashamed” doesn’t exactly invite thoughtful dialogue. It just shuts it down.

Now, to the substance: I never argued against any safety measures or regulations. I specifically said I’d welcome more research and quantification of the issue. You’re citing some early studies, that’s good, but it’s also fair to question how representative or conclusive they are before leaping to sweeping policy implications.

My point wasn’t that chatbots helping people kill themselves is fine. It’s that if we’re going to treat them like a public health threat, we should hold all tools and technologies that interact with people to the same standard and yes, that includes thinking carefully about how we approach mental health more broadly, not selectively.

If a vulnerable person spirals after a chatbot interaction, that’s serious. But it’s also worth asking: what led them to be that vulnerable in the first place, and where were the other support systems? LLMs may exacerbate, but they aren’t the root cause.

You’re framing this as a binary,either you care and want regulation, or you’re enabling exploitation. That’s a false choice. I’m saying the issue is complex, the data is early, and we shouldn’t let moral panic drive policy faster than evidence supports.

Let’s push for more transparency, better safeguards, and yes, real research. But let’s also keep the conversation civil.

You may be correct about the language not necessarily inviting very thoughtful discussion. But I didn't exactly expect one, when I engaged with someone who merely "skimmed" the article and put out an incredibly nuanced, though-provoking and discussion-inviting take like "mentally ill people, am I right?" and "this article is silly".

I'm throwing back what you put out. You don't get to claim that you wanted a thoughtful discussion when you open the discussion the way you did.

You claim you have "never argued against safety measures," yet your original comment literally called the article "silly" for merely leading readers to perhaps come to the conclusion that regulation of these technologies might be a sensible step.

You keep asking for "more research" despite the article citing multiple studies. How many more studies would you like to see? What's the acceptable death count before we move on from "early data" to "maybe we should do something"? Or, more importantly, is there genuinely any number of studies that would actually convince you that regulation would be prudent? Because, please correct me if I'm wrong, you don't seem like the type who would welcome any sort of regulation, for any reason.

Your "what led them to be vulnerable" question is particularly revealing. Nobody claimed ChatGPT creates mental illness from scratch. The issue is that it's actively harmful to vulnerable people. Food doesn't create nut allergies, but we still put "may contain traces of nuts" on food labels. We don't need to ask "why do people develop nut allergies" to recognize that nuts are causing them to go into anaphylactic shock, and they should be informed if a product is potentially going to kill them.

You say we should "hold all tools and technologies to the same standard" - but we do. That's literally what regulation IS. You're arguing for the outcome while opposing the mechanism. We regulate pharmaceuticals, medical devices, therapy practices, and yes, even social media platforms when they cause documented harm. There is a reason why children under 13 are not allowed to sign up to social media in the US.

The "complex issue" framing is a deflection here, just as it is with climate change denial. It's an appeal to the status-quo. To not change something that is fundamentally broken because it would inconvenience you, or the business' bottom line. Guess we'll have to keep drilling for oil, keep burning fossil fuels and let ChatGPT teach people how to kill themselves, ah well. Complexity doesn't preclude basic safety measures, like a simple warning label.

You want "transparency and better safeguards"? Cool. Me too. How do you propose to make it happen? Self-regulation famously worked great for big tobacco, so I'm sure it'll work great in this case.

PS: I love the motte-and-bailey retreat from "severe mental health issues" to "some sort of issue" to a vague "vulnerable". PPS: How did you like the tone of this one? Better?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com